


The Boundary

by cyfarwydd



Category: TV Commercials
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, M/M, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-16
Updated: 2011-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyfarwydd/pseuds/cyfarwydd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abram doesn’t remember a time before the boundaries. (Fic for that one Coca Cola commercial with the two soldier-esque men in the desert who walk in opposite directions on either side of a line drawn in the sand.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boundary

Abram doesn’t remember a time before the boundaries.

He doesn’t understand the reasons for why he does what he does, endlessly and instinctively. All he knows is that he must patrol the boundary, and no one must cross the line, drawn in the fine sand every morning by Abram with the rise of the sun.

It doesn’t occur to him why he only patrols twenty paces across, and why he never thinks to explore the rest of this world he inhabits, the desolate land stretching farther than the eye can see. He doesn’t look.  He’s not programmed to.

After seven suns and eight moons, he drinks the liquid. This is another thing he doesn’t think about. Inside the small square room there are many crates, all containing bottles filled with dark fluid, a strange script written on the front in smooth white letters. The first one is shaped like a crescent moon.

Abram only requires a sip to be renewed.

He has no concept of time, except for the drinking of the liquid and the drawing on the line, and his feet, one placed in front of the other in an eternal stride.

The fluid dwindles.

Then comes the week where it is gone.

For a moment he goes completely still- his mind blanks and for an instant, he is nothing.

Then he begins his patrol once more, and no longer checks for the liquid.

He grows weaker, his pace slowing. He begins squinting in the bright light, and sometimes he sees Kayden‘s eyes flickering towards him as they pass each other.

Kayden is something that he does not question. Just as there was no life before the boundary, there was no life before Kayden. He has always stood on the opposite side of the line, which he renewed with the rise of the moon, sharp edges muffled by the day’s walk. They have never spoken of this trade off.

They were not programmed to.

Abram sees that Kayden too drinks the liquid, but he noticed long ago that Kayden had many more supplies, and he does not know why this is, but he is not curious and he would not care if he knew the answer.

Neither would heed that they were experiments, and are not really men. They are a parody.

They are placed on this far off world that no one inhabits, given an arbitrary task and one is given limited supplies, the other, much more. They were being tested. They were never supposed to last this long and now they are forgotten.

Their creators are dead and they know nothing but the boundary.

But there was something, Abram did not have a word for it. He did not know what it was, or when it found its place in him. But he found his gaze and his task straying.

After a time, Abram began to watch Kayden as he passed him, eyes catching his periodically, staring, and then looking away.

His glances were returned.

They never cross the boundary.

But as he grew weaker, listless, he saw Kayden watching for much longer, even going so far as to turn his head as Abram walked beyond his line of sight.

One day, Abram stumbled and fell to his knee. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kayden jerk to a stop, staring and making an aborted motion before continuing on his path.

Abram used what strength he had left to pull himself up and resume the pace. He must patrol the boundary.

The next day, something unexpected happens.

It is not his seven suns and eight nights, but rather Kayden’s, and instead of taking his sip and replacing the container in the crates as he had for the past forty moons, he brought his fluid to the center of the line and stopped.

Abram watched him with strange eyes as he reached out a foot and blurred the line. He set the container down and stepped away, picking up his patrol.

The fluid was in his boundary. Abram waited three more suns before it was his time to renew.

He bent his body, frail and creaking in order to pick up the drink. He took a careful sip- then brought the container to his post. It took many suns before he was restored. The process continued, Kayden carefully blurring the line at moonrise and placing the liquid in Abram’s patrol.

One day, when the sun was hot as it always was, and the air dry, Abram stopped as he was passing Kayden.

Staring down at the dusty ground, he carefully turned the opposite direction, his entire body screaming. The first step, he went to his knees, his mind sparking. He fell to his hands and crawled forward, and a black liquid not unlike the one in the containers slipped from his ears onto the sand.

He dragged himself until he made a new program. A new path.

When he finally managed to stand, he was apace with Kayden, and they walked at the same speed, heads turned to stare unerringly as they walked.

Abram felt the static between them as they moved in sync.

They do not cross the boundary. 


End file.
